Denmark, named one of the happiest places on earth and known for their award-winning cuisine, is also a Bitcoin-friendly nation when it comes to getting the munchies.
Danish website Hungry.dk now accepts payment in Bitcoin for online food orders from over 1,500 restaurants in Denmark. While the restaurants don’t accept Bitcoin on location, hungry Danes can pay with BTC and fulfill their cravings by ordering online and having their food delivered.
There are few places in the world that allow customers to buy food with Bitcoin as it’s not a desirable payment method due to its volatile nature. In most cases, people would rather not spend their Bitcoin on food for the fear of missing out if the market goes up.
Take, for instance, the famous Bitcoin pizza story, where in 2010 a programmer bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins (worth $30 at the time). Today, even despite the drastic bear market we’re in, the value of those two pizzas is $38 million.
But while it may not be desirable to spend your Bitcoin on food, it’s nice to know there are companies out there empowering users to spend their Bitcoin like cash, just as it’s intended for.
Paying With BTC
The idea and act of accepting Bitcoin payments isn’t new.
Big name merchants such as Overstock, Microsoft, Gyft, Etsy, Expedia and many more currently accept Bitcoin.
Even Hungry.dk’s acceptance of Bitcoin is not new. Hungry.dk has been accepting Bitcoin as payment since 2014, which is a long time in terms of the cryptocurrency revolution.
However, last year during the parabolic price rise of the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin’s blocks became full and transactions were utterly slow and very expensive. Some BTC transactions took hours or even days to validate and cost around $30 per transaction.
For this reason, Hungry.dk had suspended their acceptance of Bitcoin for payments… until now.
As shared with Bitcoinist, a representative at Hungry.dk explained their reasons for suspending Bitcoin payments and why they are now accepting BTC again:
We have accepted Bitcoins as a payment method for quite some time. We decided to remove the feature temporarily last year though because the average transaction time took too long, and the experience wasn’t the best. The problems have since been solved, and we have added the option again… Hungry.dk handle the payment, so you will always be able to use Bitcoins with all the restaurants currently found on Hungry.dk.
The Future of Payments with Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s problems that led to Hungry.dk suspending its use have since subsided, but what if the cryptocurrency market goes parabolic again?
Well, there has already been various improvements not in place during the height of Bitcoin in 2017.
For one, SegWit vastly increases the speed and decreases fees of transactions. Another development showing substantial signs of growth and adoption is the Lightning Network.
The Lightning Network has seen a surge in usage and capacity, and recently surpassed $2 million in capacity. The network is still in its very early stages but development is at an all-time high and continues to grow.
If Bitcoin’s Lightning Network turns out to be a success, we might see BTC being adopted across many more merchants. We have yet to see the giant merchants of Apple and Amazon accept Bitcoin, but perhaps they will if Lightning Network proves capable.
How do you spend your bitcoins? Or are you just hodling? Let us know in the comment section below.
